


Black Fire

by Felle_DesignWorks (Felle)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 04:42:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19288351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felle/pseuds/Felle_DesignWorks
Summary: No matter how obvious she makes her distaste of the matter, Azula's ministers and sycophantic nobles won't leave the matter of the succession alone. Unfortunately for them, she despises being backed into a corner enough to do something...impolitic.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Don't count on Azula getting her comeuppance here, it wasn't in the outline I was given.

The Fire Lord hadn’t thought it possible that she could reach new depths of boredom after almost five years on the throne, but she was wrong. While meetings about military matters or domestic concerns were important, if stultifying, and holding open court was at least mildly amusing when her subjects bickered, this was starting to redefine banality. Endless lists of preparations and guests and security, all of which she had to pay attention to so it could all be either approved or stricken from the plans for the celebration to mark the first five years of her rule.

Azula rubbed two fingers against her temple as she listened to the Minister of Rites drone on and on about the guest list, describing who would be seated where and next to whom during one of the dozen or so feasts planned for the week of festivities. She didn’t mask her boredom, no one was going to upbraid her for it, but even visibly showing her displeasure at the proceedings wasn’t enough to make anyone hurry things along. “And at the fifth table will be Governor An and his family, five in number all told, his wife and three—”

“You already mentioned Governor An,” Azula said through a sigh. “He’s at the third table, you doddering fool.”

The minister, a relic from her father’s reign who was too entrenched to easily replace—and one of the very few people willing to fill the incredibly complex position—made some kind of ruffled sound and rendered a short bow. “A thousand pardons, Your Majesty, I should have been more specific. The first one was Governor An Rito, of Taisang Province. This is Governor An Jie, of Ochako Province. To go on, it will be him, his wife…”

She wasn’t going to survive going through another guest list, she was sure she would actually die of boredom. Or kill her minister. Perhaps both. Azula growled and shot a short stream of fire through the middle of the list he was holding, cutting it into two pieces that quickly began burning in the dry room. The minister dropped the upper part to push away other scrolls on the table before they could catch light. One of the deputy war ministers who had been sent as a proxy for his superiors laughed under his breath. Azula’s grin turned to a frown when her rites minister snuffed the fire and took an identical copy of the very same guest list from a waiting servant and unrolled it. It was her usual trick, she should have predicted that people would adapt to it. “Oh, where was I,” he said, counting along the length of the scroll one line at a time.

“It doesn’t matter, because I have no interest in hearing it,” Azula said as she flicked one finger against her thumb and sent sparks whirling through the air. “Not the list for this feast, or the next one, or any of them. Just seat people according to precedence, I don’t care what kind of squabbles any of them might have with one another. If they make a fuss, have them escorted out. How difficult is that?”

There were some murmurs of agreement from the other ministers, who had no standing to interrupt the meeting but were also slipping into torpor. Azula had the fleeting idea to gag up prisoners and force them to listen to these meetings as a form of torture, but she let it go. That was cruel, even for her. Her rites minister _harrumphed_ and rolled up the list again. “As Your Majesty wishes. That would leave only one matter for the day,” he said, and swallowed hard.

“Well?”

“It would be the last day of the festivities, ah…”

“Get on with it!”

“Your Majesty’s marriage announcement.”

Azula almost scratched herself as her fingers dragged down from her temple. The rest of the assembled ministers looked pointedly away, busying themselves with shuffling scrolls around or tucking their hands into their sleeves. “My _what_?” Azula asked as the torches around the room began to flare.

“Most…most Fire Lords are already married by the time they ascend the throne, Your Majesty,” the minister said, tugging at his collar as some sweat beaded up on his forehead. “And have heirs. Given that Your Majesty is the last remaining member of the royal family—”

That was a charitable way of putting it, Azula thought.

“—there is some concern among the government and nobility about the security of the succession.”

It was all Azula could do to keep from killing him where he stood. Even if that might have been momentarily satisfying—and would have livened things up a bit—it wasn’t going to change the underlying truth of his words. She wasn’t immortal, much as she deserved to be, and would need an heir eventually. Some upstart noble could even hold up the lack of one as a reason to help gather people to oppose her. But tying up the issue of succession with marriage, with sharing her hard-won power, was muddying the issue.

“Concern,” Azula repeated slowly, laying a dangerous edge on her voice. “And surely none of these _concerned_ parties just happen to have unmarried sons waiting in the wings to allay those concerns, do they?”

The minister made a noncommittal sound, which Azula took to mean she was right. Her frown turned into a grimace. Filthy social climbers, all of them, grasping at something they had no right to. The whole festival was likely going to be a weeklong cascade of nobles and government officials trying to introduce her to sons and brothers and nephews, all bickering and jockeying for position in the Fire Nation hierarchy.

“At any rate, there is _some_ expectation that the festival will end with a betrothal,” the minister said carefully. “Or a marriage.”

Azula didn’t humor him with a response. She barely trusted herself to get up and leave without turning around and shocking him to death, but she managed that, somehow. The crown fastened into her topknot seemed much heavier, suddenly, and she felt the weight of it all the way back to her apartments as she struggled to maintain a steady gait.

What gall they had, she thought, to try and impose their expectations on her. To suggest that they could make her decide on a marriage and slip it into a festival she hadn’t even suggested. It was an extravagance they couldn’t truly afford with their treasury still recovering from a century of war, but she had deferred to tradition and let it go forward all the same. Now, to find out most of it was only a pretext to working her into a marriage…everyone who bowed as she passed was fortunate she considered burning them beneath her.

Back in her private quarters, Azula tore off her crown and cape to strike at her training dummy, the third one she had gone through in a year. The lacquer was worn in several places where her hands typically struck, and in its place there were darkened scorch marks on the wood. She was seeing too much red to try and channel her anger into one of the more artistic pursuits her physicians had encouraged her to take up—she was certain she would only burn her easel or paper if she tried to paint or write verse—leaving her to work through a kata instead. The wood shuddered with each impact from her hands and forearms, and soon there were a few new scorches on the dummy’s main trunk.

She kept going until bruises started welling up on her hands and under her armguards, until she was sucking wind and shamefully out of stamina. Azula collapsed onto her back in the middle of the front room and pulled in unsteady breaths as she took off her armguards and let the ache in her muscles catch up with her. She frowned. Her anger hadn’t abated all that much, and now she was winded on top of it. All she could do was lie there, rub her bruises, and stare up at the ceiling. There had to be something she could do, didn’t there?

A set of soft footsteps padded closer outside and opened the door. Azula sighed. There was only one person who could simply walk in and not expect to be burned to a crisp for it, and she wasn’t in much of a mood to see her. Still, she didn’t make a motion to send her away.

“Is the rug really that comfortable?” Ty Lee asked, her head slowly creeping in at the edge of Azula’s vision. Her braid dangled in empty air, coming a bit too close to her face for Azula’s comfort.

“It is, but that’s not what you’re really asking.” Azula sat up and rubbed the back of her neck. Once she was properly oriented to the world again, she stood and waved her hand toward the table in the opposite corner of the room. Ty Lee took a seat on one side while Azula stoked the embers under a teapot beside it. “I was trying to work off some anger.”

“What happened?”

“Did you know I’m expected to announce a betrothal at the end of this festival? Or actually get married?” Azula asked, holding back a shudder at the thought. Ty Lee nodded. “Why didn’t you feel the need to mention this to me?”

“I thought you knew,” she said simply. Azula growled, making her squirm in her seat. “I mean, you know you need an heir, right? And that it’s something you can’t do on your own, you need a consort and all?”

“I’m perfectly aware of that, don’t use your mother voice on me.”

Ty Lee became very interested in the wood grain pattern in the table while Azula poured the tea. She didn’t need the same condescending tone Ty Lee took with her son. There were uses for her, she was utterly guileless and lacked most of the caution that other people exercised around Azula, so she was good for speaking truth to power. But she didn’t need the tone.

“I know most of the country won’t come off the knife’s edge it’s balanced on until the succession is secure. It isn’t as if I’m some sickly old woman, but they’ll fear the uncertainty all the same. And I’m not…opposed to having an heir, not really.” Azula pushed one teacup over to Ty Lee. “Men really do have it easier here, they only have to be involved in the process for a few minutes. I need to set aside three seasons for this. Plus the whole tiresome process of finding a man.”

“Don’t you want a husband? Well, a consort, I guess.”

Azula shrugged. “I haven’t really thought about it very much. There’s the whole business of integrating the former Earth Kingdom territories and subjugating the Northern Water Tribe to think about.”

“Oh.” Ty Lee tried and failed to hide a smirk behind her teacup. “I thought it might be because you already have that…seen to.”

“You’re pushing your luck,” Azula said, but she had no standing to challenge the truth of her statement. It was true that she had a certain toy to take care of her needs in that regard, and perhaps she wasn’t as subtle as she could be in availing herself of his services, but she was the Fire Lord. She didn’t have to be subtle. Azula tapped on the rim of her teacup. “Did you overhear the servants gossiping?”

“Hey, I’m smart, do you think I couldn’t figure out for myself that you’re not _really_ dragging him out of his cell to get information about the Northern Water Tribe every night?”

Azula raised an eyebrow.

“Fine, I overheard some of the servants gossiping,” Ty Lee admitted. Azula frowned and thought about where to reassign those members of her staff who couldn’t keep their mouths shut. “I get that you have a stressful job, and he probably helps, but it’s not like he’s going to solve this problem for you, having to find a consort and get some heirs for yourself. Could you imagine the uproar?”

Ty Lee giggled to herself, but Azula stared down into the dregs at the bottom of her teacup. Yes, she _could_ imagine the uproar, but she also see past it where Ty Lee couldn’t. Perhaps there was more of a solution there than there looked to be at first glance. Wheels started turning in her head, and she knew she would need to devote some serious thought to this.

“I suppose,” Azula said evenly, and slipped the crown back into her topknot. “I have some correspondence to answer, so we’ll have to pick this up tomorrow. And Ty Lee…we’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Well, you said you didn’t need friends, and that I was just useful, but I like to think so.”

“And you’d stand by me, even if I made a decision that seemed unpopular to others at first?”

“I don’t see why not,” she said as they got up.

“Good.” Ty Lee bowed, and Azula patted her shoulder rather than simply nod. “Thank you for coming by, I have plenty to think about now. Give my regards to Jun and Ryo.”

Ty Lee slipped from the room and slid the door shut behind her. Azula worried her lower lip between her teeth, then went over and put the latch in place. She didn’t want any disturbances while she thought out the logistics of what she was thinking of doing.

⁂

Azula threw her head back, one hand clutching at her bedsheets while the other wound through Sokka’s hair to guide him as his tongue lashed at her. He didn’t need much direction after three years of almost-nightly practice, but she didn’t think there was any harm in reminding him that she was in control.

And reaping all the benefits of his unusual enthusiasm. Normally it took him some time to get into the rhythm of things, some time for her to break down his token resistance. Tonight, though, he hadn’t complained or made some smart remark when a guard escorted him into her chambers, and only obediently followed her directions. He’d knelt at the side of her bed while she got herself comfortable, kissed his way up her thighs, and hadn’t punctuated his work with much conversation.

She let her hand drift down from his head to his left shoulder, to the mottled skin that still bore the remains of the lightning she’d struck him with underneath Ba Sing Se so many years ago. That he survived at all had been a surprise, and that show of strength was the only reason she kept him around, attending to her baser needs. Azula felt at the scar and he paused, waiting to see if she would touch it in a painful way, but she only glided her fingers over it, over her indelible mark on him, and he continued.

“Right there,” Azula said, fighting to keep her breathing even. “Keep—keep doing that.”

Sokka obeyed, flitting the tip of his tongue in a short line over her clit. Oh, he had his uses…and if she put aside the fact that he was only a peasant savage, he wasn’t unattractive. He was a bit taller than her, had a strong frame and those deep blue eyes they were born with at the poles, and was delightfully resilient. Seven years in confinement hadn’t broken him—he still had little but contempt for her, even with Azula making it clear what happened to those who defied her.

And as Ty Lee had said, he was more than adequate for seeing to her needs…Azula moaned and looked down at him as he drove her to orgasm as her thoughts returned to where they had settled earlier. She couldn’t get away with using him _that_ way, could she?

Her hand wound back to his hair and tugged as the pressure in her sex wound tighter and tighter. No, _could she_ was the wrong question. _Why_ couldn’t she? She was the Fire Lord, a goddess on Earth as far as her subjects were concerned. Hers was to decide what was right and acceptable, not to bow blindly to someone else’s definition.

Spirits help her, she had all but decided to do it. She grinned. Who would dare to say a word, after all? If all those nobles pretensed to only care about the succession, then they shouldn’t care how it was secured, and complaining would only make them overplay their position. Just the thought of beating them at their own game sent a needful twinge through her belly.

Sokka sucked lightly at her clit, and she couldn’t hold herself back. Azula grabbed the back of his head and pulled him closer to her, until his nose was tickling at the small strip of hair between her legs. The feeling of his breath on her was a welcome sensation as warmth raced out from her core. She let go of a long groan and nudged him back to let the aftershocks hit her, but Azula looked down at him rather than get lost in her own sensation as she usually did. Sokka had her all over his mouth and chin, glistening in the candlelight until he would lick it clean when he thought she couldn’t see him.

Azula pulled her kimono closed with unsteady hands and let him stand up, leaving him to loom over her while she was on the bed. His hands were bound tightly, and she could always burn him, but some part of her couldn’t help a tinge of unease at the intimidating figure he still cut after so many years in captivity. She reached over and tugged his haori up onto his shoulders, then eased back on her bed. “So,” Sokka started to say, shifting his weight from heel to heel.

“What?” Azula asked, propping herself up on her elbows to look at him. Sokka shrugged with his good shoulder and rolled his hips slightly, where he was obviously hard. She studied him rather than answer. Most nights she did reciprocate with her hand, both to keep him placated and because it amused her to see him fall apart at the touch of someone he hated so much, but now it seemed like it would be rather wasteful. Better that he be a little pent-up.

“Well, you usually…you know, return the favor.”

“Our agreement was that _you_ service _me_ , and I send a healer to your cell and keep from flattening that icefield you call a tribe. If I indulge you, it’s only when I see fit. Don’t despair, you’ll get to come. But only when I decide. So no…taking the matter into your own hands, understood?” she asked, snickering a little at her own joke. Sokka grimaced but nodded, and then bit the inside of his cheek to temper his arousal. Azula cocked her head. “You don’t have any Northern Water Tribe heritage, do you?”

Sokka’s brow furrowed at that, as if he couldn’t believe she was asking him an earnest question. “My grandmother on my father’s side is from the north,” he said slowly, likely trying to guess at why she wanted the information.

“Was she anyone of rank?”

“I don’t know, let me go ask her.”

One corner of Azula’s lips quirked, and she worked herself off the bed to nudge him out toward the front room. “Perhaps we can discuss that another night,” she said, and responded to the questioning look he shot her from over his shoulder by reaching up and nipping at his ear. “Back to your cell, snow-blood. And remember, no pleasuring yourself, or I’ll know. I have much more important things in store for you.”

“What…?”

She slid the front door open and pushed Sokka toward the waiting guard. Rather than disappear inside immediately, Azula watched her toy lope off, tugging at the back of his hakama with his bound hands to try and make his arousal less obvious. She folded her arms at first, then let one hand drift down to rub at her belly.

⁂

Azula had never seen the point in her _good_ candles, they didn’t last as long as a lamp or a torch, or even her regular candles, with their only saving grace being the soft scent they released as they burned. She’d never bought them herself, either—most were a holdover from before her mother had vanished, and the rest had been a birthday gift from Ty Lee several years prior. Now, though, with new shadows and the fleeting impression of persimmons filling the room, she was beginning to understand how they cultivated a certain mood.

Her water clock _clicked_ to announce the top of the hour, and a perverse little flutter worked through Azula’s chest. She shouldn’t have been nervous, she had worked out everything, there was no cause for nerves.

Of course, she reflected, that hadn’t stopped them from surfacing. All week she’d put Sokka into his usual place near the foot of her bed with the intent of studding him out, only for her resolve to crack at the last moment and send him away, growing more frustrated each night than the last but never lowering himself to begging. By now he had to be frustrated to bursting, and Azula wondered if he could even last long enough at this point to give her the pleasure she expected.

She decided that the problem was bowing to her usual routine. Sitting him in the same spot, going through the same motions…that was what had to change. Once they were in uncharted territory, her nerves couldn’t get the better of her. A guard knocked softly on her door.

“Enter,” Azula said, and the door slid away so the night shift’s prison guard could push Sokka forward, hands bound tight at the small of his back. Azula kept her gait steady and unconcerned as she went over to grab him by the arm and finish pulling him inside. Sometimes Azula wondered what the guard thought—she had to know what they were doing, but the guards had military discipline and loyalty, unlike servants. And the bump in pay after the Fire Lord had started using her charge for her own enjoyment had likely helped tighten her lips.

Whatever she thought, Azula decided she didn’t care, and slid the door shut in the guard’s face without a word. “Go and lie on the bed, on your back,” she said, and pushed him that way. Sokka turned back to her, fazed by the unusual order, but went all the same. Azula took a long breath and followed him.

“Did you run out of lamp oil?” Sokka asked as he looked around at the candles.

“You aren’t nearly as funny as you think. On the bed—no, wait. Stand there a moment.”

Azula raked one hand down his back through his haori, and grinned when he shivered. His reaction was more pronounced when she grabbed the sides of his hakama and pulled it down around his ankles, tapping them until he unsurely stepped out of it and his tabi. “What are you doing?”

“There. _Now_ lie down.”

She pushed him to hurry him along, and Sokka shuffled his way to the middle of the bed, struggling a bit as he tried to find a comfortable position for his hands, pressed between his back and the mattress. He was staring at her, but Azula felt no need to meet his gaze. Her focus ran lower, to where his haori had fallen open to leave his cock on display, twitching occasionally as it rested against the hard tone of his stomach. A little quiver of desire burned between her legs. She was really going to take that…Azula worked one thumb under her belt and pulled it loose so she could shrug off her kimono. It fell softly to the ground, and Sokka swallowed hard. “What are you doing?” he asked again as she sat on the side of the bed, running one hand up his leg.

“I know you’re only a savage, but you can’t be _that_ stupid. You’re going to do what I say, and give me something I need.” Azula tapped her palm to her flat stomach, and his eyes widened. “We’ve got all night, Sokka…if you’re smart, you’ll take that as the threat that it is.”

Azula shifted her weight and threw one leg over him, leaving her straddling her prisoner. She groaned pleasantly when she settled on top of him, letting the length of his cock rest against her sex. He was so very warm, looking up at her with something between fear and desire. “I would have enjoyed setting the mood a bit more, but I need this taken care of before that wretched festival. You have two options here: get me with child, or die. I think I know which you’d prefer.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” Sokka said, grimacing as she started stroking his cock.

“Oh, that’s such a tired insult, don’t you think? I’m insane, I’m evil. Don’t you spend any of your time thinking up other things to call me?”

Sokka tried to look away, not willing to surrender the consent he’d never offered but still powerless to stop her. Azula pushed herself up slightly and grabbed his chin. “Listen carefully: you are _my_ property, and you are going to look at me through this, do you understand?” she asked, losing her breath for a moment as she put the head of his cock against her sex. “You’re mine, my toy, my savage, my stud if that’s what I need from you. My—”

Azula lowered herself down onto him, and both of them let out a strangled hiss at the feeling. Her own fingers had never made her feel so full or sent such a wonderful burn up through her body, and she knew he was going to ruin her from enjoying her own company.

“Fucking—”

She sank a bit lower, letting her lips part wordlessly as she struggled to adjust to the new ways he was making her body stretch. The defiant frown Sokka had been wearing started to crack as she pressed around him, and a betraying moan escaped his throat.

“ _Savage_.”

The utter fullness at taking Sokka to the hilt nearly undid Azula right then and there. Neither of them moved at first, holding tense, silent eye contact instead, and the war she saw on his face between pleasure and hatred made her smirk. “I shouldn’t have waited so long to do this…”

“What, find a new way to rape me?” Sokka asked through clenched teeth.

“Shut your mouth and enjoy it, snow-blood,” Azula said as she ran her hand into the small patch of hair on his chest.

Once she had gotten used to the feeling of him, and she was sure she wasn’t going to break in two, Azula started to move, pushing up with her knees and then letting herself slip back down. Each fall to his hips was a new bolt of pleasure, and she risked losing her composure with the way he was winding her up.

Or, at least, the way part of him was winding her up. Sokka was still obediently looking at her, lips parted as he watched the unsteady rise and fall of her chest, but he wasn’t moving. Azula frowned and rocked back and forth, drawing a short gasp out of him. “I’m giving you my virginity, the least you could do is pretend to enjoy it,” she said.

“Yeah, tied up and used like an ostrich horse stud who can’t say _no_ , what’s not to enjoy?”

Azula squeezed at him, and Sokka’s thighs twitched under her. “I can always shoot you full of lightning, if you’d rather not cooperate.”

“You did that once already, remember? It didn’t kill me.”

That made her stop, but not out of anger. Azula pulled at one side of his haori so she could see his scar, follow the twisting paths her lightning had taken as it grounded out through him. Her chest twinged. It should have passed through his heart and killed him, and yet…his resilience really was singular. The fact that he could be so disdainful, even from a position of utter vulnerability, only spurred her on.

Azula crashed down on him again, and again and again. Every new stroke of him inside her was a hot fullness, a betrayal of his body against his defiant will, and that was enough for her. He did start going along with her eventually, moving his hips in counter to hers, until his pumps grew more frantic and lost its rhythm through gasps and hisses and grunts. Azula grinned. Still a man, still so predictable in how he reached for any pleasure she offered him, no matter how he professed to hate her. “That’s it, no need to hold back,” she said, reaching back to grab at his thighs and pull him up, as close as could be.

The first rush of his orgasm inside her drew out a shudder, and she trembled the whole way through, until Azula was full of him and Sokka looked thoroughly unhappy with himself. He slumped as much as he could with his hands still tied, wincing at every little motion Azula made, until he had to look up at her, no matter how sick with himself he felt. “You got what you wanted, why are you still on me?”

Azula tossed some of her hair over her shoulders and rolled her neck. “Oh, we’re not done. As much as the thought of not getting something right on the first try galls me, I have to make some allowances for your involvement. This needs to happen before that asinine festival. You have a week’s worth of come in you, so we’re going to stay here until I’ve wrung out every last drop.”

Sokka’s conflicted expression twisted to pure anger, tears welling at the corners of his eyes, and Azula almost lost her balance from the way he bucked to try and get her off of him. He thrashed under her, trying to work his hands free of their bindings, only stopping when she pushed his haori aside and leaned forward to drive two nails into his scar. Sokka froze, flinching in pain as the tears slipped down the sides of his face. “Stop,” Azula said, gentling the crush of her nails against him but not drawing them away. “Stop. You’re not a petulant child, don’t act like one.”

He let her wipe the tears from his face and smear them away on the bedsheets. Azula warmed her hand and pressed her palm to his scar instead, soothing away some of the pain before she sat up straight. “Believe me or don’t, I’m not thrilled about the necessity of this either, or about the rush.” She stroked the firm tone of his stomach, and Sokka twitched inside her, still hard. “I realize this is well outside of the…agreement we’ve come to over the last few years, so I’m going to make you a deal in exchange for your adaptability.”

The words sounded strange even as she said them. She was the Fire Lord, she didn’t make _deals_. Those were for nobles trading with other nobles or fishmongers selling their wares, all she had to do was make a demand and there would be no shortage of people tripping over themselves to fulfill it for her. But, Azula supposed, that was why it was him in particular underneath her. Sokka couldn’t have respect forced out of him. There was a certain value in that kind of strength—it was making her bargain, after all. Sokka started to calm down rather than throw another tantrum and looked at her. “I’m listening.”

“We don’t have to like each other. I just need something from you. So, you play along, give me what I need and keep these courtiers from all but throwing their sons at me, and I can make your confinement much more pleasant,” Azula said, and waved a hand toward the east wall. “I was already planning to do that, in fact. It’s a hassle to have you dragged up from the cells all the time.”

“You expect me to play your concubine to fend off marriage offers?”

“The word is _consort_ , Sokka. Consort. All I need is an heir, not a husband, but the next few weeks will go much easier for both of us if you act like this is something close to equitable. I won’t bother trying to ply you with the idea that your child will be the next Fire Lord, I’m sure that would only turn your stomach, but once all of this is done…I’ll let you go home.”

Sokka frowned and turned to stare at the nightstand. “I can almost hear all the strings attached to that deal, you know.”

“Oh, you’ll have to earn it, don’t doubt that. But it’s been, what, seven years now? If you find being my consort so distasteful, then I won’t stop you from leaving and going back to that pile of snow where you grew up.” Azula shifted her hips, pulling his attention back to her. “Now then, we have a little more work to do before we call it a night.”

“Untie my hands.”

Azula frowned and gripped harder at his stomach. “I must be hearing thigs, because it sounded like you just tried to give me an order.”

“You offered me a deal, I’m taking it. You want this to seem _equitable_?” Sokka asked, and she shrugged. They were hardly in public, his comfort in private was largely irrelevant to her as long as it didn’t stop him from putting on a convincing act. “Then untie my hands, please. My back’s starting to cramp from being twisted up like this. And it would go faster if…if I could touch you.”

That he still had the nerve to try and negotiate with her tickled Azula, and she reached down to pull at the ropes around his wrists. “Don’t abuse this privilege,” she said, holding off on undoing the last knot before she’d properly threatened him, “or you’ll regret it. I have no problem getting what I need from you with your hands and feet tied and a gag in your mouth. And I _will_ give you another scar.”

“Duly noted,” he growled.

The arch in his back dropped out as he pulled his hands free, and Sokka rubbed his wrists before his fingers traced up her thighs. He hadn’t ever been in a position to actually touch her, but Azula was finding she didn’t mind it. “Better?” she asked. Sokka nodded. “Good. Let’s get back to it, you feel like you’re ready to go again.”

“That’s really all you want from me…ugh, fine,” Sokka said, and snapped his hips up. Azula gasped at the slight sting of fullness and his fingers digging into her sides. He punctuated every thrust with one colorful statement or other, as if he was trying to tug away at his complicity in her scheme. “Fuck you, fuck all of this, I hate you, I fucking hate you…”

At least he was participating now, Azula thought. She let him keep swearing as his hands roamed her body, with one settling on her breast while he circled her clit with his other thumb. The candles around them flared, some of them turning blue briefly as she rose up and came back down to meet his thrusts. “There,” she said through a shaky voice. “This doesn’t have to be torture, see?”

His reply was to tip them both over in a moment when she let her guard down, flipping her onto her back so that he was on top of her, with his weight pressing the front of her thighs into her stomach. Azula was ready to grab his scar again when she recovered from the surprise, until his hips snapped again and he hit a whole new range of places in her. All she could do was moan through his thrusts and claw at his broad back, reaching down every now and then to grab his ass and pull him in closer when his pace slowed. “Was that other position not intimate enough?” she asked tauntingly, only have him dip down and stuff his face into the sheets instead, so he didn’t have to look at her. “Oh, Sokka, these fits don’t become you…”

Azula reached up and sank her teeth into the crook of his undamaged shoulder, and Sokka shivered on top of her as he shifted to pay her back. He bit her, hard enough to leave a bruise under her collar, and Azula wrapped her legs around his hips in turn. Even without using his hands, the pressure from his thrusts worked his hips against her clit in a steady rhythm, and she was quickly rising to a second climax of her own. Azula drew one hand up and settled it around his throat, forcing him to pick his head up and look at her. “What—?”

“This will make it better. You’re close, aren’t you?”

As if in answer, his thrusts grew wilder, less composed, more a rut than an instroke that ground his hips into hers. He didn’t tap at her hand, and Azula’s grip tightened when he hit all the right spots. Sokka lost one last gasping breath as he pushed into her, and his shuddering was enough. Azula leaned up without quite realizing what she was doing and kissed him—the emotions overwhelmed her, she supposed—as her body squirmed from the dual rushes of ecstatic warmth wracking her. He started on top of her, as shocked as she was, but then kissed her back, with his tongue flitting against her lips until she let him in.

He started bumping his hand against hers as they rested there, and Azula let go of his throat so they could break for air. She looked at her new mark on him, the imprint of her teeth on his shoulder, and smiled. A moment of frisson worked through her when his forehead rested against hers. She had bent him to her will, but he hadn’t broken him. He didn’t have it in him to break, no matter what she did. Any other spineless fool would have folded like a bit of silk, but he put up a fight, he resisted, he even made her bargain. She knew that was why it had to be him.

And she knew that was why she wouldn’t ever let him go.

What a foolish deal she’d struck…but there was plenty of time before she had to worry about that. Slowly, they returned to their senses, and Sokka eased himself out of her. Azula winced at the sudden emptiness as he rolled onto the bed beside her, panting and rubbing softly at his neck. Her bite was starting to bruise, and if she had her way his uninjured shoulder would have its own manner of scars soon enough. Azula stroked at his chest, then dragged her nails down harder when she remembered herself, leaving two angry red lines in their wake. “I hope you aren’t expecting to spend the night in here,” she said. Sokka rolled his eyes.

“Of course not, it’s back to the cell now that you got what you wanted.”

His tone had returned to its usual contempt, and it stung to know he could flip back so quickly. Azula laid one hand over her stomach, moving in slow circles. “You don’t have to go back to the cell,” she said, and he raised an eyebrow. “Not unless you renege on our deal. You’re playing at being my consort, it looks bad if I keep you in a cage. Let me give this a few minutes to take, and then I’ll show you to your new quarters.”

“Fine, fine.”

He pulled a pillow over to rest his head on and fell silent, watching her hand make its circuit of her stomach in the candlelight. “You didn’t have much to say about the obvious end result of this,” Azula said.

“You’re pretty fond of telling me that there are better uses for my mouth than talking.”

“It’s not my fault if your tongue is—never mind,” Azula said, abandoning her quip. “You’ve never thought about having children?”

Sokka frowned and started to reach toward her belly, but pulled his hand back. “Not like this.”

“Fair enough.”

“Did _you_ consider the end result?” he asked suddenly. “You’re always so quick to call me a savage or a snow-blood, what do you think they’re going to call your kid? Our kid?”

Azula pursed her lips. “If they’re smart, they won’t say anything they aren’t willing to back up in an Agni Kai. Though your concern is touching. All right, get dressed.”

When they had untangled their clothes from the pile beside the bed, Azula brought him to a small passage at the back of her bedroom. It led to a dead end, until she pumped a small burst of flame into a hole on the wall and made a section pop away.

“These were my mother’s apartments,” Azula said as she led him into the consort’s quarters. “And the archivist looked at me like I had two heads when I pulled all of this out of storage, so you had better appreciate it.”

Sokka stepped past her and felt at the Water Tribe tapestry hanging from the wall. “This design has to be…”

“At least a hundred years old, yes. There weren’t any books on your tribe’s décor, but I think I did well, considering the materials I had.”

“Yeah,” Sokka said, and turned back to her. “Thanks.”

“There are clothes in the wardrobe there, and that button will call a servant. I wouldn’t recommend venturing out yet. And in case you get any regicidal ideas, this passage only opens from my side.” Azula drummed her fingers along the wall and hoped he wouldn’t test that. “Rest up, there are five more weeks until the festival starts and I intend to be pregnant by then.”

Sokka nodded absently, as if they were discussing something as trivial as the weather, and she closed up the passage to let him explore his new accommodations.

⁂

Azula let out a long sigh under her breath and thumbed at the fabric of her robes. Another pointless meeting going into another pointless hour of preparation about this festival she didn’t want and couldn’t afford. Ty Lee hovered near the back of the room with the servants as the Minister of Rites droned on and on, having come along with her after a long morning of losing her dinner from the night before. Despite the lingering malaise, she was looking forward to finishing the meeting.

“That would only leave the last matter of preparation—”

“If you start rattling off another guest list,” Azula began, lightly stroking her belly.

“Ah, no, Your Majesty. The only thing left to do is finalize your betrothal announcement. I had dossiers delivered to your offices from several noble families who put sons or nephews forward for your consideration.”

He spoke carefully, tiptoeing up to the issue, but Azula didn’t even turn a glare on him. “You did. And I burned them all, they won’t be necessary. I’ve selected my consort, and I’m already with child, as it happens.”

Ty Lee’s eyes widened at the back wall, and Azula pretended not to notice. The assembled ministers exchanged confused whispers, leaving her to wait until they composed themselves. “That…that will surely be welcome news, Your Majesty,” the Minister of Rites said, fumbling with his itinerary sheet now that she had preempted him. “May I ask who we have to thank for helping you ensure the succession?”

Here it was, the moment of truth. Azula smirked. “Oh, you know of my Water Tribe prisoner, don’t you? Sokka. It’s him.”

The minister tore his paper as he started, and for a few seconds, no one dared to draw breath. For once, no one was shuffling about or clearing their throat. Azula could have heard a pin drop.

And then everything exploded.

No one exploded at _her_ , of course. It was more undirected shouting than anything, grating on her ears and worsening her nausea. Her rites minister simply looked horrified, the deputy war minister was trying and failing to conceal some snickering behind his hand, and several servants along the back wall were passing money to a very smugly satisfied Ty Lee. Azula had the thought to let them tire themselves out, but after a solid minute with no signs of letting up, she knew they were only going to make her sick with their cacophony. She grabbed the edge of the council table and forced lightning through the heavy wood until it began to hiss and a large crack appeared right down the middle. That shut them up well enough.

“It was never my intention to make this decision,” Azula said, lowering her voice to its dangerous tone and finally turning a baleful eye on her rites minister. “You tried backing me into a corner, forcing a decision out of me—so I made it and chose someone. Someone who has no intention to start politicking, whose loyalty I don’t have to worry about, and who can survive a proper lightning strike. If any of those nobles’ effete sons want to try besting him on that last score, they’re welcome to try. Are there any other questions?”

The silence was deafening. “I didn’t think so. We’re done here. I hope everyone enjoys the festival.”

By some miracle, Azula was able to keep from showing how hard her heart was pounding until she had left the council room with Ty Lee on her heels. She cut her stride short and clutched at the closest pillar for support when they were out of sight of anyone else, breathing so hard that a bit of steam shot from her mouth. “So,” Ty Lee said, rolling back and forth on her heels, “congratulations? Did you start thinking about names?”

“One thing at a time,” Azula muttered once she had recovered and straightened up. “I just flouted the entire Fire Nation government for presuming to try and force me to make one of their choices, I need to come back down to normal before we can discuss something so mundane. Why were all those servants handing you money, anyway?”

Ty Lee took one of the coins from her belt pouch and rolled it between her fingers, making Azula a little dizzy from trying to follow it. “Some of us had a friendly wager going. You know, about who you’d take as your consort, if they’d survive the experience, and how you’d announce it…and I won all three with outside bets,” Ty Lee said with a mischievous grin.

“Fine, then you’re paying for lunch. I need something to settle my stomach, anyway.”

“Will the prince consort be joining us?”

Azula rolled her eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

There were some perks to being the Fire Lord’s consort, Sokka was finding. The situation was all kinds of wrong and he would have been happy to make a break for the coast if he thought he could get away, but there were perks, and indulging in them was one of the only things keeping him sane. One of them was having better meals than the rice gruel he’d been served twice a day when he was stuck in the cells beneath the palace proper—much better. Even if the Fire Lord stuffed his diet with more sweet fruit than he normally cared for.

This morning, though, he wasn’t very hungry, and decided to luxuriate in bed a little while longer before wandering around his quarters. There wasn’t much to do beyond reading or exercising unless Azula wanted him for something—and it was always a very particular _something_ —so a little relaxing seemed warranted. He was far too worn out from the night before to get up early, anyway.

Of course, he thought as he stretched out and felt something shift around his left ankle, he might not have had the option. Sokka sat up and blinked some sleep from his eyes so he could look around. This wasn’t his room. He seemed to be in Azula’s quarters, on the side of the bed he usually claimed when she’d gotten what she wanted from him. That in itself wasn’t all too unusual, sometimes he wore her out too much to get out of bed and open the passage between their rooms, though he distinctly remembered going back to his own bed the night before. He also had no recollection of the snug metal cuff around his ankle, or the chain on it leading to one of the posts on Azula’s bed. It seemed rather slack compared to the ones she liked to use when she was in the mood to tie him down, too.

“All right…”

He could hear voices from the front room, familiar ones that usually meant trouble for him. Sokka climbed out of bed, saw most of his clothes had been stacked in a neat pile nearby, and pulled on a dark blue kimono before poking his head out of the bedroom. “Oh, great.”

The Fire Lord was looking rather out of sorts while Ty Lee arranged her hair for her at the sitting table, pallid from a spate of morning sickness if Sokka had to guess. She had one hand resting on the swell of her stomach, and he couldn’t help a twinge of…something when he saw her. Not affection. They didn’t even like each other, it was a purely selfish arrangement on both their parts, she got her heir and he got the chance to stay out of the cells and win his freedom at the end of all this. Still, much as he didn’t like her, Azula was carrying his child—his head spun to think of that—so surely his concern had some warrant. “Good morning.”

“Hey, cutie,” Ty Lee said, earning a possessive growl from Azula that devolved into an unpleasant groan. “Still don’t like sharing your toys, huh?”

“The toy can hear you,” Sokka said dryly. Ty Lee only winked at him and went back to working Azula’s topknot into the fan shape she liked. “Dinner didn’t agree with you?”

“So it would seem. This baby must not like spice, because I end up like this whenever I try to add any.”

Azula reached out toward him and made a grasping motion, and Sokka went to her side so she could lean on him. It almost made her seem normal, or it would have if he didn’t know better. “So, not to try and make a big deal of it or anything, but why am I chained to your bed?”

“I have to go to Baihe Island for a few weeks, my husband is…doing something there, I wasn’t listening very closely when he told me what it was,” Ty Lee said matter-of-factly as she finished tying a length of silk around Azula’s topknot to hold it in place. Sokka waited for her to go on, but she didn’t, and instead went around Azula to apply her makeup.

“And that translates to this how, exactly?” Sokka asked, shaking his foot to make the chain and cuff rattle against one another. “Couldn’t be bothered throwing me back into the cells, but I still need to be reminded that I’m a prisoner?”

“Well, Azula needs someone to take care of her, doesn’t she? The doctors told her she ought to stay in bed as much as possible apart from some light exercise. This way you’re here whenever she needs you for something,” Ty Lee said with a grating cheerfulness. Sokka frowned. “And she didn’t think you’d stick around if you weren’t, you know, tied down.”

“Seriously…?”

Azula got to her feet, but kept steadying herself on Sokka. “Yes, seriously. You’re the whole reason I’m in this sorry state to begin with. And you ought to know that I like tying you up by now,” she said, and went loping carefully back to her bedroom. He heard the soft _thud_ of her falling onto the sheets. “Don’t worry, I have a schedule for you to follow.”

“Try to hang in there for at least a week, all right?” Ty Lee asked, then went to the door. “I’ve got some good money riding on this.”

“You really like to gamble, don’t you?”

“As long as I win,” she said, and slipped away, shutting the door behind her.

Sokka tapped the cuff on his ankle a few times to see if it was something he could get out of, but it didn’t seem the least bit flimsy to his still-waking mind. He walked around the front room next, to at least figure out where he could walk and where he couldn’t. There was enough slack that he could take a few steps into the hallway if he was so inclined, and everything in the front room and its storage closets was accessible. He sighed and went back into the bedroom, where Azula had arranged most of the pillows on the bed into back support so she could sit up against the wall. She looked at him while popping a few lychee nuts into her mouth, then reached out and offered the bowl to him.

“Was this really necessary?” Sokka asked as he went back to the bed and climbed onto his side. “You have a literal army of servants.”

“But I want you.”

Azula seemed to realize her phrasing after a moment, if the flush of red around her neck was any indication. Sokka drew his free leg up to his chest and placed one hand on her belly. “So…how’s the baby? Can you feel anything yet?”

Her fingers settled on top of his. Never _your_ baby or _my_ baby, or even _our_ baby. _The_ baby. There was no need to get overly familiar because of the arrangement they had fallen into. The Fire Nation and the Water Tribes were still technically at war, after all.

“No, that shouldn’t happen for another month or so. I’ll tell you.”

Sokka wondered how he was going to feel when this was all over, going back to the Southern Water Tribe and trying to pick up the pieces of his life while his child stayed behind, poised to inherit the throne of an enemy power. Was it really fair to leave his son or daughter behind with Azula as their only involved parent…he shook his head clear. That was months off. For now he had his present confinement-within-confinement to deal with. “You said you had a schedule?”

Azula produced a scroll from her sleeve and unfurled it with a triumphant flourish before handing it over. Sokka’s relief at some semblance of routine crumbled quickly. “An hour blocked out every morning for back and foot massage,” he said, looking over her small, neat script.

“My feet are swollen. And do you know what havoc my shifted center of gravity is playing on my lower back?”

“You’ve written _meal_ here six times. Who eats six times a day?”

“I can’t eat very much at once right now,” Azula snapped back, jabbing an accusatory finger toward her stomach. “And it comes back up half the time anyway. You might want to go and get a spare chamber pot to leave by my side of the bed, too.”

Sokka kept looking over the schedule until he arrived at the end of the parchment. “The entire evening just says _cuddling_. Are you serious? You want to cuddle all night?”

“I was strongly advised not to neglect any chance to further the baby’s emotional development. The midwives were very clear about that, and I must have some reason to keep them around…lie flat, I’ll show you.”

He did so, and Azula nestled into his side, nudging his arm under her neck so she could put her head on his good shoulder. One of her legs rested on his, and the angle of her body left the swell of her stomach just above his hip. “So either like this, or—” Azula turned over and took him with her, curling into his back so that they were pressed up against one another— “like this.”

One arm might have been settled nicely beneath her neck while the other rested under her stomach, but Sokka was frowning despite the comfortable warmth radiating from her. He shouldn’t have liked the way she felt cuddled up to him. It didn’t matter if they were playing at being sovereign and consort, they were captor and captive under it all. Whatever simulacra of a real relationship they humored was only a deal, something done for the welfare of their child. That was what he kept telling himself as he buried his face in the crook of Azula’s shoulder and caught the gentle scent of her soap.

“I should have you stay the night more often, if this is how you are in the mornings,” Azula said, and rocked her hips against his arousal. Sokka’s breath grew tight as he answered her, moving in counter until she shuffled away and sat up again. “Not now though, I’m still queasy. Besides, it’s massage time.”

She scrunched her toes to emphasize her point, and Sokka let out a deep breath. However long Ty Lee was going to be away, it was too long. The cuff and chain bumped noisily against one another as he moved down the bed.

It was a slow week, at first. Azula said that she meant not to get out of bed unless it was necessary, and she had been completely serious. When ministers came with reports, he fetched them, face burning with misplaced embarrassment from the odd glances he would get over the cuff on his ankle. When servants came with food, it was much the same, though then he had the extra task of parceling out the components of each meal onto separate plates so as not to offend the Fire Lord’s newly delicate palate.

“Can’t they do this in the kitchens?” Sokka asked on the third night of being pressed into service, while he was looking for more plates to deconstruct their dinner.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I should have been more considerate of all the nothing you were doing when I interrupted you.”

He rolled his eyes again and again before bringing the tray back to the bedroom, where Azula was swathed in pillows and looking over one of the scrolls that had been dropped off earlier. Sokka set the tray down in the middle of the bed and removed his own plate to eat quickly before she decided that she needed him for something else.

“Here, look this over, I want your opinion.”

Sokka nearly choked on his roasted turtle duck. “You want _what_? Has the baby made your brain go all fuzzy? Because I seem to remember you saying that I was nothing but a savage. Now you want my opinion on Fire Nation policy?”

“I need a fresh pair of eyes on this. And you have a perspective that I don’t. Just because it’s largely useless to me doesn’t mean it can’t be of value every once in a while.” Azula left the scroll beside the tray and picked up her bowl of rice. “The ambassador from the Northern Water Tribe in the colonies wants to use a trade agreement as a prelude to an armistice.”

“And you’re considering it?” Sokka asked, nudging the scroll open so he could read while finishing his dinner.

“There’s nothing of value there. It’s all ice and near-freezing water, so it would be a nightmare to take in the first place, and the thought of the logistics required to keep it supplied is giving me a headache. If they want to trade, fine. But I’ve never been there, I have no idea what they want or what they would have to offer. That’s where you come in.”

“I’m so grateful that my small talents can be of use to Your Majesty.”

Azula sipped at her tea while he read. “Perhaps I’ll make use of some of your larger talents tonight if you don’t irk me.”

Sokka worried his tongue between his teeth as a rush of excitement pooled and settled lower than he would have liked. There were perks, true enough…but he had to remember the deal they had struck. He gave her what she wanted, and she would let him go home.

Even if his home wouldn’t have him any longer, after the things he’d done here.

He shook that thought from his head and focused on the scroll Azula had given him. The language was more formal than he was used to, and it took some time for him to stumble over it. “Salt.”

“Beg pardon?”

“You have a state monopoly over salt mining, don’t you? That’s the only thing I can imagine that they would want, salt to use as a preservative and seasoning.” Sokka pointed to their dinner. “Salt would help the fish they catch keep longer. You could get the kinds of cold-water fish they have there and sell them as delicacies, plus they would have pilot books for the seas around the Earth Kingdom. Your merchants could use them.”

“That makes sense, I suppose…” Azula tapped two fingers against her lips, and Sokka found himself transfixed by the sight, wishing it was his fingers or lips touching hers. She kissed him sometimes once he’d satisfied her, but that always felt more like being claimed than being shown affection. He wondered if she would stop him if he tried. Sokka leaned over with most of his weight on his good arm, turned Azula’s head toward him, and kissed her. There was a little yelp of surprise, but she parted her lips to let him deepen his kiss as soon as his tongue flitted against them. Her teacup _clinked_ as she set it down so she could thread her fingers into his hair, tugging and holding him in place, as if she was afraid he would pull back before she was ready. If he didn’t know better, Sokka would have sworn Azula had to stifle a moan as she pushed against him. The sting of desire that lingered when they were in proximity flared into an ache, a throb that _wanted_ her against all reason, that left him breathing hard as they parted with red cheeks and nervous gazes. “Why did you do that?”

“I just…wanted to see how it feels when my tongue isn’t half-numb,” Sokka said. He eased back, but kept from returning to his meal until the buzz on his lips died down.

“And?”

He turned to her again. Azula was still leaning toward him, uneasiness replaced by her usual haught. “And what?”

“You said you wanted to see how it feels, so how does it feel?”

“Oh.” Sokka pushed some hair she had disturbed behind his ear and took a few long breaths to steady his heart. “Good, I guess.”

“I have to be careful not to swoon from your overwhelming praise,” Azula said flatly. “I’ve had my fill, you can clear this away.”

Sokka indulged in a few more bites from her plates before putting the tray out in the hall for a servant to collect, and once he got back he saw that Azula had already shifted about on the bed. She’d rearranged her nest of pillows so she could rest on her side to read with her back to him, and Sokka did his best not to disturb her as he climbed in behind her. There wasn’t much to do if she wasn’t in the mood to play pai sho, so he was ready to curl up and rest when her hand reached back and grasped for him.

“What is it, what’s the matter?”

“Cuddling time.”

“Right, right.”

Sokka shuffled over and settled against her, contouring his body to the way she had positioned herself. He let his bad hand rest on the swell of her stomach, hoping to maybe feel the baby moving, even if Azula said it was too early. She seemed to be right, though, and he was left doing little but making circuits of her belly with the palm of his hand. Sokka found he didn’t mind this part of their arrangement very much, and apparently neither did Azula. “That feels good, keep doing that.”

“What, this?” he asked, and moved his hand about to make his point.

“Yes, that. The rubbing feels nice, my stomach’s always sore now.”

“Sorry.”

“You should be, it’s your fault I’m like this in the first place,” Azula said, then gasped as Sokka pushed his hips up against hers. He let his hand drift a bit lower, circling between her legs, and they began to part until he went back up.

“I’d say you’re the architect of your own misfortune this time, Azula.”

She didn’t humor him with a proper response, and only swished her hips every so often as she went back to her book, just enough to keep him hard. Sokka kept up his gentle ministrations all the same, soothing her soreness and trying to keep her in a good mood. For the baby, he told himself.

⁂

He had finally been getting used to their new arrangement when Azula decided to fall ill.

That wasn’t right, Sokka knew—she hadn’t _decided_ anything, and yet she was sick all the same. Under any other circumstances, it might have been amusing, the way her pride had refused to let her believe she was susceptible to something as blasé as the flu. As it was, though, he was growing concerned despite her insistence that she was fine and that her body would simply burn out whatever was ailing her.

Sleep never came. The water clock in the front room dripped to mark the second hour of the new day, but Sokka was still wide awake, pressed up to Azula’s back the way she liked, worrying over the alternate hot and cold stretches of her body. She was sleeping, if only barely, shivering despite the warmth in the room through labored breathing.

“Why didn’t you just let me call a physician,” Sokka said under his breath. Azula curled forward, making a little ball out of herself and gasping for small mouthfuls of air. Her shivers worsened to trembling as if she were desperately trying to keep warm on a freezing night, and Sokka tossed the sheets aside. “Enough of this, I’m not going to let you get any worse because you don’t believe you can get sick like us mere mortals.”

He lit a candle and reached over to Azula’s nightstand for one of her hairpins, then jammed the open end into the slim keyhole on his cuff. It was a thin and unobtrusive design, but that made it flimsier than a thicker lock. The cuff popped open as it had when he’d tried it two nights prior, freeing him to throw on a kimono and scoop Azula up in his arms. Her head lolled into his chest as he walked, and for the moment her shaking abated, replaced by a weak grasp at his chest.

The physicians chastised _him_ for some reason when he arrived at the medical wing and not their stubborn, half-conscious patient. Likely because they couldn’t reprimand the Fire Lord and expect to walk away with their tongues. Or because he’d interrupted the night staff’s very important shogi match. Sokka didn’t care. As long as they did their jobs, he didn’t care what they said to him. The same Water Tribe healer who used to work on his shoulder helped her get down a sweet-smelling mixture, then waited for an hour as she made careful notes every few minutes about her temperature and breathing. She had to work around Sokka, who stayed at her bedside and stubbornly refused to move lest he have to pull his hand away from Azula’s.

“You know, there ought to be a button or string that will call us down to the residence, you didn’t have to come all the way to the medical ward,” the healer said.

“I panicked, all right? Little buttons are hard to see when it’s pitch black.”

She chuckled and made a few more notes on her writing board. “Her Majesty is lucky to have you, isn’t she? My husband only ever gets annoyed when I’m sick, but you went ahead and carried her down here for a fever.”

“I’m not her husband—”

“Right, right, royalty couldn’t properly marry people like us,” she said, bending the water in the healing tub on the other side of the room to make her point. “Well, that aside, it seems like she’s going to be all right. It’s a minor fever, her body only reacted as much as it did because of her pregnancy. I’ll put together some more itri milk for the morning, but the rest of her symptoms should be gone by the time she wakes up. Do you want to take her back to her quarters, or let her stay here for the night?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Well, you’re the prince consort. And I can’t very well ask the Fire Lord, can I?”

 _You’re the prince consort_.

Sokka decided that wasn’t a thought to mull over in the dead of night and shook his head. “No, I’ll take her back. Too much explaining if she wakes up here.”

He waited while she made her mixture, then pocketed it and gathered up Azula in his arms again. The Fire Lord wasn’t small, especially in her current state, but she was easy to carry, nestled in his chest with her legs hanging over his bad arm. The healer opened the door for him and bowed as he started to leave. “Please let us know if the symptoms persist, we’ll inform the day staff in case they need to take over.”

Sokka nodded, began going over the threshold, then stopped and looked back. “Do you like it here? In the Fire Nation, I mean? The snow-blood talk never gets to you?” he asked. “You never miss your home?”

“My children and husband are here…this _is_ my home. Please, you should both get some rest.”

It was a long walk back, and a longer wait until the morning.

⁂

Sokka was barely conscious when he heard the door open in the front room, and what had been the beginnings of a headache threatened to flare into something much worse when he heard Ty Lee’s gait come hopping across the floor. He shifted in his chair on Azula’s side of the bed. “I’m back—Agni, what happened to you? Were you up all night with some bad fish or something?”

“Please, I don’t have the energy for your usual routine right now…she got a little sick last night, I’ve been waiting for her to wake up.”

“Oh.” Ty Lee stepped toward the bed and picked up the abandoned cuff, prying the hairpin out as she _tut_ - _tutted_ under her breath. “It’s a good thing the prison doesn’t use this model, if this was all it took. But you’re here anyway, so I guess I still win the bet.”

Sokka rolled his eyes. Ty Lee reached over and pressed the back of her hand to Azula’s forehead, then drew away, apparently satisfied with what she felt. “I remember the first time my son got sick, I think it was colic…I looked a lot like you do right now. Didn’t sleep a wink, I was too worried. It’s kind of cute, you being all concerned even though she forced you into this.”

“Right now I’m basically coasting on my good looks, so I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s more than that, even if she won’t admit it…well. I didn’t have anything important, I’ll stop by again later once she’s awake.”

She paused, unsure of how to formally bid him farewell given the difference in their stations, and settled for bending a bit at the knees before skipping out. Sokka shook his head. “It’s too early for anyone to have that kind of energy,” he mumbled, and went back to his vigil.

When the Fire Lord did finally stir, Sokka forgot all the fatigue building up in his body. His hand tightened around Azula’s as her face creased into a frown—of course she would frown first thing in the morning, Sokka thought—and she opened her eyes. He sighed in relief. Azula turned on her side and looked at him, her frown giving over to confusion. “What are you sitting there for?” she asked, and reached for the cup of water he’d left on her nightstand.

“You were sick last night, I wanted to make sure you were all right now.” Azula cocked her head. “Nothing serious. Kanua let me bring you back here and said you ought to be better by the morning, so I wanted to make sure. I was trying to take your temperature every so often, but the way you normally feel would be a fever at the South Pole…firebender and all…so I just decided to wait until you woke up to see how you felt.”

She touched the back of her hand to her forehead and shrugged. “I feel fine, I must have burned out whatever it was. I vaguely remember last night, I’m sure I said something like that. But—you’ve been up all night?”

Sokka nodded. Azula sat up, cradled her stomach with one hand, and touched at the picked cuff with her foot. “Oh, you got out. And you’re still here? You didn’t go back to your quarters through the front hall?”

“No. And you thinking that I would is more than a little insulting.” Sokka got out of his chair and moved to the edge of the bed so that he was hip to hip with Azula, then took both of her hands in his. She actually moved back a little when she saw the intensity in his eyes, then leaned toward him again. “I’m not going anywhere, chain or no chain. We made a deal, remember? And even if we hadn’t…that’s my child. _Our_ child. That’s not something you walk away from where I’m from. Now relax and I’ll get breakfast, and then I’ll hold your hair back after because you’re probably going to throw it all up in an hour.”

For a moment, Azula didn’t seem to know what to say. She was studying him, teasing spirits-knew-what out of his words, before her lips broke into a smirk and she grabbed his collar. “You know I love it when you bare your fangs.”

She pulled him down beside her, lengthwise across the bed, nudging his lips apart with her tongue as one hand raced under his haori. Her ferocity caught him off-guard—she usually only wanted his company at night, once they were cleaned up and still well put together—but he was ready to match it, all his exhaustion set aside. Sokka pulled her kimono open and wrapped his arm around the small of her back, hiking her up against him. Azula started to turn so that she would be facing away from him, but he touched her shoulder and nudged her onto her back. “Wait…I want to look at you.”

That put some color on her face, and demurred before nodding to the swell of her stomach. “As nice as that is, there’s this to deal with.”

Sokka grabbed two pillows and picked Azula up around the hips to stuff them underneath her, then descended on her again, pushing her robe from her shoulders and nudging her legs apart with his. He tucked a few loose locks of hair behind her ear and felt one of her legs wrap around his hips. “Just be careful,” Azula said, reaching down to find him painfully hard.

“Of course.”

Her nails clawed across his back as they rocked in time with one another, hold him as close as could be while she bit at his lower lip. Sokka kept himself balanced on his good arm and swirled the thumb of his free hand in slow circles just above her sex to make her back arch under him. A few needful moans slipped free of her throat, spurring him on. Both of them were tired and a mess and they couldn’t have cared if they tried, lost in each other as they were.

Azula stayed curled up beside him afterward, letting the air wick away the sweat they’d worked up. Sokka twirled an idle finger through her hair. With a bit of clarity in his mind before the fatigue crept back in, he wondered how long he could keep lying to himself. His wife, or whatever Azula was to him according to some arcane Fire Nation law, started to snore lightly on his shoulder. He could keep lying to himself a little longer.

⁂

What little edge pregnancy had taken off of Azula’s personality came back with a vengeance when she fell into labor. It wasn’t directed at _him_ , by some mercy, though only because Azula was too occupied by pain to remember that he was partly responsible for her present state in the first place. He didn’t have much to do as a small army of midwives and physicians busied themselves around them, and for the most part he was treated like a piece of furniture: something for the Fire Lord to lean against and squeeze when the waves of pain hit her. Sokka had offered up his left hand as a sacrifice of sorts, letting her crush it in hers to keep her from grabbing his undamaged arm.

His helplessness to do anything but behave as a prop frustrated him, but Katara had always been the one to help with births around the tribe, not him. If the most he could do was let Azula lean on him, then he would do that as well as he could.

It was a very loud few hours, and by the end his hand had been scorched twice and likely broken, but that concern was small and far away as Azula’s pained sounds gave over to…silence. There was no crying, no wailing that should have accompanied a newborn. The midwives exchanged uneasy glances as they cut the blood cord and cleaned up the baby, and Sokka wanted to ask them what was the matter, but a sigh of relief spread through the room before he could. His usual Water Tribe healer brought over a small, swaddled bundle that she placed in Azula’s arms. “A healthy girl,” she said with a beaming smile and a bow. “She seems to be asleep, but her breathing is fine.”

Sokka looked over Azula’s shoulder at their daughter, a small, pale thing that had yet to open her eyes. Instead she shuffled about in her blanket, deep in slumber, while the thin fabric moved in time with her breaths. “Not very talkative,” Sokka said, reaching over to stroke her head.

Azula still looked dizzy with pain as she turned toward him. “Hmm?”

“We should set her with the nurse for now, the second one will be along any moment,” the healer said. Sokka looked up, then felt something crush his hand again.

“I beg your pardon?” Azula asked.

Though he’d never had the information before, Sokka quickly became very well acquainted with the fact that delivering a second twin was no less unpleasant than delivering the first. If his hand hadn’t been broken already, it surely was by the time their second daughter burst into the world, crying enough to make up for her elder sister’s silence. Sokka peeked over Azula’s shoulder to make sure the swell in her stomach was gone, and thankfully his hand was spared any further mangling as Azula fell back into his chest on the bed before their daughters were brought back to them. Sokka got to hold the younger girl while Azula held the older twin, and all the servants waited in expectance to hear the names of their new princesses.

“Are you all right?” Sokka asked in a low voice. Azula nodded and stroked the baby’s cheek with her thumb.

“Shizuka,” she said, still breathing hard from exhaustion. “Crown princess Shizuka.”

One of the servants hurried to write the name down, then waited. “And the younger princess, Your Majesty?”

Azula let her head rest on Sokka’s chest and caught his gaze. “I only thought of the one name for a girl. You can decide.”

“Me?”

“That seems fair.”

He wanted to ask when she had decided to adopt a policy of fairness, but Sokka only looked down at their younger daughter. Her skin was a few shades darker than her sister’s, though they both had the same bright amber eyes. She grasped his little finger when he put it near her hands, and she was warm, even through the swaddling blanket. “Kya?”

Azula nodded. “No written pronouncements yet, verbal only. I’ll figure out the exact characters and spelling another day. Now, unless you’re helping me with something, out. I don’t like having this many people in my quarters.”

Someone lingered to help her with breastfeeding, while another midwife put together a crib that could go next to the bed. Sokka took advantage of the downtime to ice his hand, then wrap it in bandages so it would set properly. He thought about slipping away for some healing, but he found it was very difficult to leave.

The sun had set at some point, and Azula simply didn’t have the energy to stay up much longer. Apart from the dim light cast by a few candles on his nightstand, the room was dark, but sleep remained out of reach. Sokka only stared at the ceiling, listening to his own breathing while Azula dozed beside him. She didn’t try to have him chained up again, nor did she send him back to his own quarters. After so many months, she seemed used to him existing in her space, and he had grown accustomed to it as well. Sokka slipped out of bed and went around to Azula’s side to sit beside the crib, watching his daughters make little motions with their arms and legs as they slept.

Azula rolled toward his side of the bed, then started when there was nothing there to stop her. “Where’d you go,” she mumbled, then looked around with blinking, unfocused eyes. “Oh. What’re you doing over there?”

“Just looking. They’re so…tiny.”

“They didn’t feel tiny, I promise. Where’d you pick that name from? Kya?”

“It was my mother’s,” Sokka said. Azula nodded, then wrapped her fingers around his undamaged hand. He circled one joint of her first finger with his thumb. “You knew I wasn’t going to be able to walk away from this, didn’t you?”

“Do we really have to have this conversation now? I’m exhausted.” Azula tugged on his hand, but once she saw he wasn’t budging, she sat up and propped a few pillows behind her. “Fine. It crossed my mind. Seeing how much your people seem to care about family, I wasn’t sure what would happen once our deal was done. I’m still not sure, and I hate not knowing things. I won’t stop you…if you want to leave. I can have a ship ready in the morning to take you wherever you want.”

She sounded far from enthused with the prospect. Sokka, too, felt a knot in his gut at the thought. “But if you leave, it’s alone. Our daughters stay here.”

“I figured as much. Deal’s done, you got what you wanted. Your succession is safe, and you even have a spare child,” Sokka said, though even insinuating something could happen to his children made him feel sick. “But I remember what you said. You told me that you’d let me go _home_. You never said anything about the Southern Water Tribe.”

Azula drew her hand back from his with a glance at the crib, where the babies were still sleeping, then shifted forward on the bed until she was close enough to wrap her arms around his waist. “I’m going to say something, and it’s not for you to repeat. Understand?”

“Yeah.”

“I…I hope that you’ll stay. I won’t force you, but I want you to,” she said, burying her face into his good shoulder as if she were afraid that he would see her face go red. “Your presence is a comfort to me. I like that you’re willing to challenge me and not bend like a reed if I seem annoyed. But I can only imagine how you must feel about me, after all the cruelty. I dogged you across the Earth Kingdom, shot you full of lightning, kept you confined in the cells, forced you into this arrangement—”

“Broke my hand,” Sokka said.

“You would’ve done the same under that much pain…not the point. Perhaps I don’t have any right to ask you to stay, but let me be selfish in this. Stay, please. We’re everything the other isn’t, and that perspective helps us both. I want our daughters to know you. I want your arms around me when I fall asleep. I want to make this feel like a home for both of us. And them.”

She drew her head back so she could look at him, and Sokka rested his arm across her shoulders. “That’s a lot to ask of a savage.”

“Is it too much to ask of my consort? I’m not going to cage you up like a songbird anymore. You’ll be able to visit your homeland, if you like…perhaps even with them when they’re older,” Azula said, nodding to their daughters. Sokka raised an eyebrow. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not my predecessors, grinding the world under my heel isn’t worth the headache of keeping it there. I’m content with ruling the Fire Nation and collecting taxes from everyone else. So stay, please. You won’t lack for anything. Fine food, clothes, swords if you’re so inclined, input on our dealings with the Water Tribe since you’re about the only expert on them that I have.”

“And you.”

“What?”

“And I get you,” Sokka said, sliding his hand along her side. Azula leaned forward and rested her cheek in the crook of his neck so they could both watch their daughters sleep.

“And you get me. Like I get you.”


End file.
